


Mirror, Mirror

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:30:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fall takes an unexpected - and not entirely undesirable - twist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror, Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the Sheriarty scene in The Empty Hearse, an attempt to reconcile it with canon and make it not OOC which turned into nice little drabble. I swear it was supposed to be pure fluff but apparently I am incapable of writing anything without angst.

“Thank you, Sherlock Holmes. Thank you. Bless you.” He grasped Sherlock’s hand and smiled, desperately, at the absurdity and hopelessness of it all. He could have pulled out of this plan earlier, he could have stopped it, but now he was trapped here at the bottom of a downward spiral which he had engineered. Sherlock Holmes was going to die because of him.

He wasn’t going alone.

Moriarty reached for his gun and opened his mouth before he could change his mind. He pulled…

No. NO! The gun wasn’t there anymore, he had dropped it or-or- that wasn’t supposed to happen! No, this wasn’t right, he was supposed to go out now, he was supposed to end it gloriously, romantically, dramatically…

He flailed for the gun, slowly registering a voice through the pounding in his ears, a face through his cloudy eyes.

“Jim! JIM!” Sherlock’s hands gripped his shoulders. “Moriarty! You… you almost-” Sherlock collapsed on the pavement, heaving breath. Jim watched helplessly as he took the gun and chucked it over the side of the building, then put his head in his hands.

Moriarty sunk down, his back to the wall, and dragged in breaths through insane laughter, choking back sobs. That was it, then. He was going to be handed over to Mycroft, or someone, it didn’t matter, and that was it. No romantic ending for him, and no Sherlock either. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, sweating and crying, his heart beating away, eating up all the beats of the hearts he had stopped. He nearly retched at it.

Sherlock looked up. “Why are you crying?” He gasped. “I fixed it. I fixed us.”

“What are you talking about? It’s all wrong. I just- this was never supposed to happen. I was never supposed to…” Never supposed to fall in love with the enemy. He should never have stopped to watch Sherlock dance. He should have looked away and kept walking. He may have been walking downward then, but at least he knew where he was going. “Never supposed to vary from the plan. You were going to die and I was going to walk away and keep being the big man. The consulting criminal. And now-I don’t know. It’s all wrong, Sherlock.”

“Jim-”

“Why are you calling me Jim?” His eyebrows knotted.

“C’mon, Moriarty. Figure it out. You’re not ordinary, you’re not a goldfish. You’re outside the glass.” He went over to Moriarty, tipped his chin up, and looked into his eyes. “Look at me. Figure it out.”

Moriarty gulped and focused, and clarity came over his face. He mouth opened and then he smiled, nodding, and laughed. “Oh, wow.” Sherlock nodded and Moriarty turned his head away. He whistled. He took a deep breath. “Who organized it? Mycroft, right? You never were going to really fall. Tell me how?”

“You already know John is coming here. We put a dummy on the edge of the roof, make the call, and the dummy falls. The homeless network puts down a fake body and arranged it so that John never sees me clearly, or sees me hit the ground. Molly fakes the records.” He sat and pulled out his phone. “And both of us are erased.”

“Clever. Very clever. But you couldn’t have know that I was going to be willing to go with.” His face fell again.” Or even I would be alive at all.”

“One of thirteen possibilities. Personally, my favorite.” He smirked at Jim and tapped the codename for the plan into his phone, pulling the dummy out of the roof closet where it was hidden.”

“John is supposed to believe that’s you?” He snorted.

“He’s only going to see it from a distance.” Sherlock dropped the dummy, ready for when Mycroft gave the word that it was all in place. He sat against the wall again and drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m going to have to say goodbye to John.”

Moriarty sat beside him, the temporary euphoria falling away. “Where do we go, after this? Into hiding? That’s no life for either of us, just staying.”

“We need distractions, I know.” Sherlock spoke without taking his head out of his hands, though Moriarty could hear the strange, excited smile in his voice. “We’re going to clean up your mess.”

In some strange way, Moriarty enjoyed the idea of turning in on his own network. “That’s good, isn’t it. Me, solving my own puzzle. But it’ll change as we solve it.” He smirked. They were both such junkies for excitement, for mental workouts. For a satisfaction for the burning itch to think that was always there. For the tandem and freedom from frustration when in synch with your own reflection in a mirror. “Much more challenging that way. Should keep us going for a while.

Sherlock’s phone buzzed.

Everything is in place. Whenever you’re ready. –MH

Unspoken words and tensions crackled in the air, passing between them in glances and expressions as they deduced each other at lightning speed, neither entirely believing the undisclosed desires they saw.

Sherlock put the dummy up and dialed John.

As he made the call, Jim watched quietly. They were both insane. The possibility of this working, smoothly and perfectly, was so small, and after this they were going to deliberately throw themselves into uncertain danger. And yet-

There was a tiny spark of hope in it, something Jim never though he would have before coming up onto this roof, that took the despair and fear welling up in him and twisted it into a strange, hopeful euphoria and unlikely, uncontrollable giggles. Sherlock hushed him and finished the call, letting go of the rope and allowing the dummy to fall.

They both broke into nervous laughter then, staring at each other. Moriarty sucked in a breath of air and his face became suddenly serious, eyes flitting to Sherlock’s lips.

Sherlock knitted his eyebrows in confusion for a split second. He understood emotion, in a clinical way, how other people used it and responded to it- but he had always considered it a weakness. Tried to stamp it down, to control it. But now that he was feeling it himself… he found he didn’t feel the need to control this particular emotion. He didn’t know why, he didn’t understand the swelling in his chest or the fact that he just wanted to ride it through- but against all the parts of his logical brain screaming at him to stop, he leaned in.

Moriarty’s heart leapt to his throat and he tilted his head. Suddenly, illogically, against all odds Sherlock’s lips were on his own, warm and soft and tentative, every movement played out as if in a mirror, perfectly timed.

I am you. You are me.

…And Jim’s heart steadied, healing the wounds torn in from the plot, knitting it together into a not-quite-flawless whole. He was still broken, but he was no longer falling apart.

He broke for breath, unafraid now to stare directly at Sherlock. The unspoken question hung in the air, in the flick of his eyes downward, the tilt of his head. John?

A quick shake, tinged with sadness. A friend. I care for him-but not like this. Sherlock leaned back in, stopping in the second before their lips met. I.O.U., he mouthed. I O U adventure, IOU distraction… IOU love.

He extended a hand and rose.

“Come on, Jim. We have to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sincere apologies to those who may have been waiting for more chapters, I tried, and I failed. It stands on its own as a drabble, though.


End file.
